Dean and the Kitten
by DjinnAndDragons
Summary: I was on a certain blogging site a while back, when someone suggested, just to the general, fanfic-writing public, that somebody write a fic where Dean has a Kitten. I decided to take up the task, and i only hope that someone enjoys this!
1. Chapter 1

Dean's getting restless in this town. They've been looking for something-anything-to hunt, for what seems like weeks now, but they've got zip.

Dean watches as Sam clicks away on his laptop, searching, he assumes, the websites of all the newspapers in the state, maybe the country, because they've been waiting around for a Freaky-News-Of-The-Day headline or a call from Bobby-Hell, Dean's already called the man himself a few times now- but he's starting to feel like all the meatsuit-nabbing demons and ghouls, shifters, wedigos- they're all, what, out to lunch?

_ No, if they were, we'd have heard about it._

Dean snorts at where his train of thought has dropped him, causing Sam to glance over, all typing ceased. Dean scrubs at his face with his hand.

"What?" Sam looks agitated, though he shouldn't be. Dean didn't direct that at Sam, didn't even mean for it to come out, really.

Dean sucks in a very long, very audible breath, which turns to a sigh near the end. "Ah, Nothin'."

Sam slowly releases his stare, turning back to the screen. "Mhm." He drags out, obviously thinking otherwise, but seemingly too caught up in what he was doing to ask further. _Sure is typing a lot_, Dean observes, when suddenly his thoughts are crushed by a loud bang at the door.

They both shoot up, muscles tense and waiting for the need to spring for their guns, salt, or badges. Dean glances, eyes serious, to Sam and, as he receives the same look, they both step forward, Sam slightly behind, and Dean unlocks and opens the door. He stares out into the bright light of the late-afternoon sun, glinting magestically atop the Impala's hood. He fights with his thoughts for a moment, before, finally, looking down.

Dean bends into a crouch, reaching his fingers into the open box and underneath the thin blanket held within, flipping the edge of it up. Sam can see Dean's shoulders are tightly hunched, ready for anything, his whole body a live wire.

"What is it?" Sam finally asks after a few moments lacking movement from his brother. Dean shoots abruptly upwards and backsteps, almost coming in to contact with Sam's chest. He shuts the door gingerly, like he's attempting not to wake the baby he doesn't have, and turns, though Sam hasn't moved. He stands firm, waiting to see if Dean picked the box up.

He didn't.

"Dean."

"What?"

"What _was_ it?" Sam's bitchface twitches in and out of his expression, while curiousity holds the main stage. Dean shrugs and pushes past him, returning to his spot on the floor where their guns await polishing. Sam huffs a breath and re-opens the door. Dean turns to face the guns, muttering about how Sam should just leave it be, as his brother dips down into Dean's earlier stance and briskly flips the folded blanket open. Sam, too, sits for a moment in thought, watching the slow rise and fall of the small animal's round belly. It couldn't be more than 6 weeks old. It's tail is, well, kind of not there, but it doesn't look to Sam like it was one of those "eat-your-young" things. It doesn't look bob-tailed either, though.

Sam lifts the box slowly, bouncing back up and onto his feet. He brings the box inside and plants in upon the table. Dean groans faintly behind him.

Sam concludes, fifteen minutes-and multiple complaints from Dean- later that the town doesn't have any animal shelters, and the closest one is a two hour drive. Dean immediately sputters on about how the Impala's not a litterbox and there's no way he's cleaning up cat piss and how it would ruin the apholstery and so on.

"Well, since the Demons seem to be taking all their sick-days at once and we've got no leads on anything else-"

"Sam, we can't keep him."

"Her." Sam corrects, stepping to loom over the box. The kitten has rolled over onto her back, displaying her white underbelly, front paws crossed over her face. Sam smiles slightly when she opens her small eyes groggily, and flips over to face him. Dean stands and joins Sam at the box, eyes fixed upon the kitten's small teeth as she yawns. Sam sneaks a glance over at his brother and sees his mouth twitch upwards.

"I'm gonna go see if I can find some stuff for her." Sam says as he twists around and grabs his wallet off the table. Dean's vision targets a small black oval travelling along on her light-and-dark-grey-striped side.

"Sam."

"Yeah?"

"Get Flea stuff. And don't get her crap food, she needs the good stuff so she'll be healthy. Maybe a cat-carrier, too."

Sam stares at his brother's back for a moment. Dean sounds like he might actually be okay with having her here. His lips fight a smile.

"Kay. I'll look around." Sam nabs the keys off the table and then he's out the door. The kitten's eyes flit to Dean's, and they stare for longer than Dean can manage without blinking. Her eyes are a golden yellow, and as Dean sits in the chair to get closer, he sees the innermost part of her iris is teal coloured. He reaches in and runs two cautious fingers along her side, the contact immediately sending her into soft purring. He repeats the motion a few times, and then picks her up out of the box. Her body hangs tiredly in his large hands, her curious eyes still burning into his own.

He cradles her on her back in the crook of his arm, and stands, lifting the blanket from the box to carry with him to the bed. He hadn't noticed before, but the thing's pretty dirty, and she's no different. He tosses the blanket back into the box and gets a small towel from the bathroom, wetting it underneath the faucet. He expects the kitten to jump when the water rushes into the sink, but she just stares. Seems like all she can do. Her body is a limp, warm, ever-purring mass against his chest, and Dean finds himself smiling down at her again. He settles her down on his lap and gently drags the towel down her back, wiping free the gunk caked in her fur. He wraps the towel around his finger and holds her face, wiping her little dark-pink nose, above her eyes, under her chin. Some fleas scuttle along, away from the newly cleaned fur. Dean furrows his brows as he inspects her ears. Dried blood from fleas and the mites they carry sits near the entrance to her over-large ears. He re-wets the towel in another corner, re-wraps his finger and, as softly as he can manage, digs into her ear and swipes out as much as he can, cursing the small dark creatures now running along through the fibers of the towel. He quickly does the other ear with yet another corner and tosses the towel in the garbage can.

He lifts her back up into his arms as she shakes the water from her ears, but she hadn't protested verbally at all. Dean'd be glad to get the fuckers out of his ears, too.

He steps back over to his bed and beats his pillow to soften it. He lays her down, and she stretches out her paws before curling up to ready herself for her return into the land of long kitten-naps. Dean pets her head and scratches behind her ear before shifting down onto the floor where the guns have laid untouched. He faces her, looking back and forth from her to the shotgun he's cleaning the barrel of. She mews, small and faint, before shutting her eyes once more. She doesn't seem to have any complaints about her new surroundings, or her new big brother.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam finds a dollar store, and a small food-and-such store, both luckily still open in this small of a town, and buys two small food bowls, name-brand kitten chow, a shallow plastic tub to use as a litter box, the smallest bag of litter he could find, and flea treatment. He lingers in the pet section, before the many coloured collars, but decides against getting one. Dean's intentions probably aren't pointing towards keeping her for that long, just until they find a way to be able to transport her safely in the Impala into a larger town with an animal shelter. He would have gotten the cat carrier Dean had suggested if only the store sold them.

Maybe Dean'll get over it, Sam could just hold her and drape a towel over his legs just in case she went, or keep her in that box she came in. She'd probably sleep the whole way, anyway, so they really have nothing to worry about.

He unlocks the door to their room and steps inside, holding the plastic tub, filled with all of the other items he purchased, and a bag of fast food to make up for the dinner they were too distracted to go out and get earlier. Backing into the door to close it, Sam surveys the small, dark space, searching for the lightswitch with his shoulderblade. The guns, as far as he can tell in this darkness, are clean and laying on the end of his own bed. His eyes follow through to rest upon the dark lump on Dean's bed, oddly shaped, with a small bump protruding where his brother's chest should stop. Sam smiles awkwardly to himself after finally shoving the lightswitch upwards. Dean is sprawled atop the blanket, breathing steadily, and apparently asleep. The kitten is purring loudly, as Sam can now hear, setting the plastic tub down upon the table.

He wanders about the room, setting up the litter box and food and water bowls in a secluded corner, where he's sure Dean won't accidentally kick them on his way to the bathroom at night. He hopes the kitten was with it's mother long enough to know how to use a litter box, which is honestly something he hadn't thought of until now.

Guess they'll find out soon enough.

Through all of the noise of setting up, Sam sees that Dean and the kitten aren't going to budge. He flicks off the lights and flops down onto his own bed, pulling the sheets up and over him, flipping around and onto his stomach. He tucks his arms under the pillow beneath his head, and sleep slowly takes the third member of the family.

In the morning, Sam wakes up seemingly alone. The bathroom door is shut, and soon after he hears the faint sound of rushing water through the pipes in the wall. He sits up, flinching slightly when he sees the small grey-striped mass at the end of Dean's bed, looking straight at him. She continues to stare, motionless, and so Sam decides to get up and get some new clothes, seeing as he didn't change yesterday. As he pulls a shirt from his duffel, Dean steps out of the bathroom.

"Mornin', Sammy." He slurs, still half asleep, as per usual in the mornings when they've got no jobs to work. Sam walks back to his bed and sits.

"Hey. How'd you two sleep?" He asks, watching Dean's hand glide over the small, purring mass, seeing the smile that sticks for only a moment before he meets Sam's eyes, and, with a shrug and a grunt, plops down onto the bed.

Two days go by where neither of them really feels the need to leave for any extensive amount of time. Sam continues along with his whatever-it-is he's got going on on the web, and Dean looks through John's journal a few times, cleans some more guns, re-makes some Holy Water after remembering the spell, and, mainly, plays around with the kitten. She isn't ignoring Sam, though. She'll wander over and rub up against his leg hanging off the side of the bed, or climb up his pants to get onto the bed, with a little help from Sam's hand. Sam snorts out a laugh once, when she walks up and flat-out sits on his keyboard in the middle of his typing, and looks up into his eyes, waiting to be given attention. He scartches behind one of her oversized ears, causing her to burst into loud purrs. She then decides to settle down along the inside of his thigh, watching the letters magically appear on the screen as Sam types.

Once, when Sam looks over to his brother on the floor, wiping down the barrel of a shotgun, he sees Dean's mouth turn up on the side facing him when the kitten flops down on the floor beside him.

When Sam asks about breakfast on the third morning, Dean looks to the kitten first. After a moment of thought, he plucks the keys from Sam's hand and walks to the door.

"I'mma see if there are any bigger stores around, maybe one'll have a cat-carrier."

Sam nods. Okay, maybe he's still trying to get rid of her.

"Bagels?" Dean asks, jingling the keys to retain Sam's attention, thinking of the House Of Bagels they saw when they drove in. Sam nods again in agreement.

"Bagels."

"I hope they've got those ones with the jalapenos and cheese on 'em." Dean thinks out loud as he's shutting the door. Sam smiles faintly, and plucks the kitten from her place at his feet.

Sam never thought he'd be more grateful that a cat was smart enough to use a litter box.

Turns out that she does know how to take care of her business, so there's that. Still isn't pleasant cleaning the thing out, though.

On the fifth day, Dean wakes up early to pack their things. It's nearly Nine O'clock by the time Sam gets up, and he feels his stomach drop, but he knows this is best. He couldn't have honestly imagined they could keep a cat with them through all of the things they do, all the places they go.

Dean looks like he hasn't a care in the world, or at least none more than he usually does, and he smiles, and pats the kitten's head, humming along to the endless stream of Metallica in his head. He's cleaned the litter box out, something Sam had never conceived he'd ever do, and packed up the bowls, food, and unused litter in the Impala's trunk, tucked into their own little corner on the fold up which conceals the boy's arsonal. He hands Sam the plastic tub, now lined with one of the pillowcases from the motel, and, kitten in hand, plunks down the stairs into the parking lot.

Sam slides into the passenger seat as Dean turns his key, and the kitten stretches up from her place on Dean's lap to look out of his window. She stays alert on the passing cars for about a mile, but soon curls back up on Dean's lap.

Sam tosses the tub on the backseat a few minutes later, realizing she probably won't bet moving soon.

An hour down the highway, Sam has to ask.

"So, what's the nearest town with an animal shelter?"

"What?" Dean looks honestly confused. He raises a brow at his brother.

"Y'know, so we can drop her off?"

Dean laughs once, still eyeing Sam like he's crazy. "Sammy, she's great. We're keeping her."

"It's just that... we can't _really_ have a cat, Man." Sam, of course, wants to keep her, with the way Dean has been acting with her around, but he knows that this new logic of his really is the right thing to say. "Plus, you're all OCD about keeping the car clean. She'd scratch the seats or something." There, now he'll agree and they can go on their not-so-merry way without her.

"S'what the cat-carrier's gonna be for." Sam blinks and stares out the front window.

"So, she's staying." Sam wants to clarify, to make sure he really isn't just crazy.

Sam expected some kind of snarky tone, but all he got was a very calm, very final "Yes.", followed by a smile that burned through him with such a strange amount of happiness that he had to smile, though much weaker, straight back, and, turning his head back to rest in on the window pane, let the smile stay as he shut his eyes to wait out the miles rolling by.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean and the kitten Chapter 3

Sam awoke to the familiar crunch of gravel as they pulled up to the auto shop at Bobby's.

"I don't think he's gonna want a cat in his house, Dean."

"Yeah, well.. He can drink and get over it. 'Sides, he invited us, so, he can't turn us away now."

Parking the Impala, Dean reached into the back seat and grabbed the kitten's tub and, lifting her from his lap, placed her inside. He adjusted the pillowcase, pressing it snug against the sides, and stepped out of the car. He stood for a moment, letting the kitten survey her new surroundings, standing with front paws on the rim of the tub. She blinked sleepily, and turned to look up into Dean's eyes, immediately erupting into purrs.

"You're so weird." He smiled down fleetingly as Sam appeared out of the corner of his eye, heading for Bobby's house. Bobby, having heard the roar of a motor, met them at the door before they could knock.

"Aw, hell." Bobby locked gaze with the small furry mass, and stepped back with a sigh of annoyance, letting the boys and their purring bounty pass into the kitchen. They dumped their duffels on the table and found their way into the room where the only conceivably comfortable chairs in the whole house were; Bobby's study. Dean sat and rested the kitten, still in her box, on his lap, watching her breathe. She had already fallen back asleep since they had entered the house. Sam sat down in the chair across from him with a soft thump, causing Dean to look up just as Bobby entered the room.

"Hope you boys got your rocksalt handy."

Dean lets a low-volume "_Finally_." ride out on a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment. Bobby slumps down into the chair behind his desk, picking through the printed articles explaining the death of one Jackson Reins, forty-two, single, and, up until a week ago, very much alive, and not burned to a crisp in his one-bedroom apartment.

"Vengeful Spirit?" Sam asks, with an honestly curious tone to his voice. He doesn't usually pine after getting a hunt, but it's been weeks.

"Yep. Man caught fire in his apartment, doors and windows locked." He spoke as if he'd said it hundreds of times, which he had. Sometimes it seemed like ghosts had no creativity. It got tedious, but that's the life. Sam inspected the papers.

Dean's morale suddenly felt stunted. "His shirtsleeve coulda just caught on an over flame or somethin'.." At this, Sam huffed a short laugh.

"You'd have to be pretty out of it not to notice you were burning alive." Dean mouths "_Bitch." _and Sam quickly follows the custom, softly chuckling to himself as he sees Bobby roll his eyes at the two idjits.

Bobby began to go over where they were to go, if any of the local fuzz had any "ideas", and Sam listened intently, as usual. Dean, however, had tuned out, inspecting the kitten's teeth. Sam would recap all of the normal info later in the car, anyway. He ran his index finger underneath her sharp front incisors, and noticed an extra prick behind the left one. Lifting her head gently, he pressed her lip upwards, revealing a mutated double-tooth.

_Looks like we've all got problems._

Dean is brought back to reality, seeing Sam and Bobby pass him by, heading back into the kitchen. He jumps up from the chair, kitten in hand. It's now or never.

"Hey, Bobby, I was wonderin' if-"

"No. I ain't no babysitter. Take it with you."

"It's only for the hunt! You won't even know she's here." Dean's voice is firm, and he stands still, watching Bobby. He's got no good reason not to do this for them. Bobby stares at the kitten for a second, and huffs an aggravated sigh of defeat. He turns and throws his hands up in the air.

"Fine! But it ain't getting' no five-star treatment." Sam smiles at Dean behind the man's back.

Sam loads the kitten's necessities into the near-empty extra bedroom upstairs. He and Dean had stayed in this room when they were younger, when John had hunts that Sam was too young for, and Dean still too inexperienced. He would drop them off with Uncle Bobby for what should've been only a few nights, that, once, he remembers, stretched on for an entire month. John had caught scent of another case while finishing up the original, and then another after that. Sam smiles. Thought the memory has a slight bitter taste, the majority had been alright. Bobby let he and Dean do whatever they pleased, within reason. Where John would've had Dean practicing gun maintenance, Bobby had him take his little brother outside to play amongst the heaps of metal, battered and unloved scraps that he and Dean would some day have to search through for parts, rather than to settle their game of Tag or Hide And Go Seek.

Sam breathes loudly in the otherwise quiet room, pouring the kitten chow and filling the water bowl. He checks, as Dean had made sure to tell him to do, for ant holes she could get caught in, anything precariously placed that she could knock over. This bedroom had a bed, yes, though it was really only a mattress on the floor, with no frame. An old, moth-eaten blanket lay strewn across it, wrinkled, dusty, but somehow inviting. He doesn't think Bobby ever touched it after the last time they had had to stay when they were children. He can almost see his brother roll out from beneath the blanket to leave it just the way it appeared to him now.

The heavy tread of boots climbing the stairs bring him back to reality, and he turns just as Dean appears in the doorway, kitten and tub in hand. His brother stares past him at the bed for a moment, remembering all that Sam had just been thinking about, and his voice is soft, as though he's trying not to wake his young, invisible, sleeping self of all those years ago.

"The car's ready."

Sam nods and moves silently out of the room, leaving Dean to place the kitten on the mattress, giving her room a quick once-over. He places her in front of her food and she begins eating, and he steps silently backwards out of the door, shutting it to keep her in. He follows Sam down and out of the house, a quick goodbye as they pass Bobby. The engine rumbles, the gravel crunches, and a kitten begins to mew.


End file.
